It's a curiosity, a singular spectacle, to say the least --
or a political farce, to say the most. While weirder-than-thou Rethugs
play whack-a-mole roulette -- anointing, then shredding favorites -- dispirited
lefties dream up ways to press -- even displace -- a fallen incumbent.
Suckered by one media nutcase after another, the simpleminded,
image-driven fringe pray for the perfect earthly redeemer for president.
Look, perfection rides in with the Rapture that will obliterate earthling
voters and transcend an increasingly unchristian politics.

A far more reality-based left rejects a painfully can't-do,
won't-do, non-liberal, non-reformer, whose perpetual warfare, corporate-friendly
welfare, and joblessness promise to finish off remnant liberalism. That
prospect quickens were this president, having trading off big mandates for
today's "absolute underdog" status," to get trashed by a
synthesized, tarnished GOP non-entity.

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Even though Obama betrayed liberalism for corporatism, he's
still tagged by extremists a loser socialist, squandering what polling a year
ago presaged his likely re-election. If this is calculated White House
"pragmatism," against the low-likes of Boehner or Cantor, let's have
plan B -- and shoot the moon for anything vaguely progressive before 2012.
Remember that sleazy W., though destined to be savaged by historians, got
90% of his agenda passed -- and cruised to a second term. Why didn't
failure after failure not similarly impede W.'s calamitous ideology?

Defined by Deviants

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Even more shocking, the Great Obama-Democratic Party slide
comes against stunted political foes -- cynical, greedy, sound-bitten,
corporate bottom-dwellers. With more vacant narcissism than presidential
talents -- yes, you "Herb" Cain, but Perry, Gingrich, Paul, too --
notwithstanding Bachmann's outerspace orbit. Didn't Arnold the
Actor demonstrate that political craft has a real, multi-variant learning curve
-- and amateurs can't learn it on the job? Does Obama truly exhibit more
in-depth mastery over economics or militarism, environmental planning or
Constitutional rights, than two years ago? Doesn't stubborn loyalty to
bad advice present a classic case of not learning from experience, nor gaining from
failure?

The entire morass evokes twin quips from Ambrose Bierce's 19th
C. Devil's Dictionary, as true today as
then: "Politics, noun: a strife of interests masquerading as a
contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private
advantage." "Vote, noun: the instrument and symbol of a
freeman's power to make a fool of himself and a wreck of his country."

No one better exemplifies this masquerade wreck than the
Palin -- the arch-amateur who blurs election with winning prom queen -- still
on FOX by refusing to learn anything political or historical, other than netting
cash. Doesn't she typify the modern malady of premature entry by inept
hustlers? Didn't W. precede her, utterly bereft without tyrannical Dick
Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. Didn't another smiling neophyte follow Bush
with more Bushism, not knowing enough to doubt his own hand-picked, entrenched
Wall Streeters? Whatever complex factors brought Obama down, the
outcome today is undeniable -- the spectacle of an incredible vanishing
president, the elected outlier mesmerized by Washington power politics.

For a decade, Robert S. Becker's rebel-rousing essays on politics and culture analyze overall trends, messaging and frameworks, now featured author at OpEdNews, Nation of Change and RSN. He appears regularly at Dissident Voice, with credits (more...)